It’s good to see the death metal underground is alive and well with new bands cropping up, especially in unexpected places. Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Enemy Reign is now spewing forth their first full length album, FROM HELL TO OBLIVION. Rocky mountain high death metal, anyone? One important note, Enemy Reign features the drumming prowess of Andon Guenther, creative director, programmer, and co-creator of Sick Drummer Magazine.

Enemy Reign blends old school death metal with grindcore and a hint of thrash riffing. This is middle of the road heavy in terms of death metal, on a similar level to bands like Malevolent Creation, Gorguts, and Monstrosity. Things start of grinding with “Haunted”, a good opener with intense blast beats. Drumming is solid throughout with impressive speed and tempo changes; this isn’t deathcore style monotonous crap. Steve Boiser varies his vocals between guttural and high pitched, which provides a bit of an Exhumed feel, especially during “Seven Deadly Sins”. His vocals are not hard to decipher if you are into this kind of brutal stuff. There are some good thrash elements during “A Viral Evolution” in which melodic solos blend seamlessly with the old school death assault. There is also a Slayer influence with some of the riffing throughout the album. On the flipside, there is nothing original here and several tracks are similar.

I enjoyed my trip FROM HELL TO OBLIVION. If you like old school death / grindcore, you will too.